AHC: Plurality of American Indians in the Americas

[Deleted member 166308]

Series of comets strikes eurasia, setting civilization back in the old world is the only way to get it.

Is it really that unlikely? The American Indians only have to form a plurality, not a majority, of the population of the Americas. And they can have some European and African blood, as long as they keep to their native traditions and language.

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

I consider OTL to be well on the pro-amerindian side post-contact with eurasia in terms of demographic/cultural survival so unless you somehow set the old world back a few thousand years or so forget about the OP's request

 

[Deleted member 166308]

I consider OTL to be well on the pro-amerindian side post-contact with eurasia in terms of demographic/cultural survival so unless you somehow set the old world back a few thousand years or so forget about the OP's request

Why? How could the natives be even more worse off than OTL?

 

[Gloss]

In my opinion any plan to introduce diseases earlier is flawed, you need to work instead to make the big contact work the best for the locals which can be done in different ways(using a non-specific post 1350 POD):

1. Slow down European conquest while still having plenty of contact and trade.
2. No transatlantic slavery, which likely means more European AND Native ancestry in places where today more African ancestry exists.
3. Have as many native communities as possible be receptive of Christianity and have them hosts priests and literate people that would Christianize the locals while promoting and writing down local languages, but this will be done under the control of the locals and as non-violently as possible(resistance against Christianization would probably be a thing), it would be interesting if a new alphabet is created like it was for Slavs(2 times)
4. I'm not an expert but IF European ancestry helps with diseases then have natives invite European settlers on their own accord as mercenaries against their own enemies and by giving them positions of power.

From there you could have the concentrated regions of from Mesoamerica to the Andes radiate out and colonize less fortunate regions where natives were numerically small even before the Columbian exchange, maybe as some sort of "crusaders" to expand Christianity to all the Americas from the inside, so to speak.

Places like Eastern America and Brazil would still be hard to change given their isolation from those demographic centers and their low population size but at least for Brazil you can still work with Tupi and Guarani.

 

[Deleted member 166308]

No transatlantic slavery, which likely means more European AND Native ancestry in places where today more African ancestry exists.

I'm not sure about this. In parts of Latin America it was very common for blacks to assimilate into native culture and adopt the native languages. And the African DNA granted resistance against Old World diseases.

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

Why? How could the natives be even more worse off than OTL?

There's sizeable mestizo/other mixed populations and some of their languages are still spoken OTL. I can easily see atls which don't have that.

 

[Deleted member 166308]

There's sizeable mestizo/other mixed populations and some of their languages are still spoken OTL. I can easily see atls which don't have that.

As late as the 19th century, the majority of Mexico still spoke a native language. It's due to the post-colonial language and cultural policies of Mexico that lead to the decrease in native language use there.

 

[Deleted member 166308]

Places like Eastern America and Brazil would still be hard to change given their isolation from those demographic centers and their low population size but at least for Brazil you can still work with Tupi and Guarani.

The trouble with the southeastern United States is that they were in a basically constant state of collapse. The Mississippian chiefdoms would periodically deplete all their soil and firewood, and collapse, with the survivors fleeing to found new chiefdoms and restart the cycle all over again. This lead to extremely low population densities in the area, with substantial areas being only sparsely populated. In the early-15th century, most of western Kentucky was emptied of human life, and in the mid 15th century, much of the Savannah river valley suffered a collapse and was depopulated. If we can somehow make the chiefdoms more stable, than there will be a greater population density, which means that there will be more American Indians after the European Conquest to play a major role in the Southeast.

 

[Gloss]

I'm not sure about this. In parts of Latin America it was very common for blacks to assimilate into native culture and adopt the native languages. And the African DNA granted resistance against Old World diseases.

A mixed African-Native environment on average facilitates the spread of European languages(which would be the more prestigious one and long term the one with more stability, while the source of African slaves shifts arounds and as natives demographically stagnate) and the long term dilution of native ancestry(as more and more Africans are brought and as plantation competes in terms of land)

The trouble with the southeastern United States is that they were in a basically constant state of collapse. The Mississippian chiefdoms would periodically deplete all their soil and firewood, and collapse, with the survivors fleeing to found new chiefdoms and restart the cycle all over again. This lead to extremely low population densities in the area, with substantial areas being only sparsely populated. In the early-15th century, most of western Kentucky was emptied of human life, and in the mid 15th century, much of the Savannah river valley suffered a collapse and was depopulated. If we can somehow make the chiefdoms more stable, than there will be a greater population density, which means that there will be more American Indians after the European Conquest to play a major role in the Southeast.

The difference is IMHO simply to big and hard to change even with a POD centuries before Columbus, it's easier to work with the Mesoamerica, Andeans and some other populations.

 

[Deleted member 166308]

The difference is IMHO simply to big and hard to change even with a POD centuries before Columbus, it's easier to work with the Mesoamerica, Andeans and some other populations.

California might be interesting. If they get in contact with the Oasisamerica cultures, they could adopt corn cultivation from them, and with the inspiration, start domesticating some of their own crops. By contact, they would be a mosaic of city states dotting the Central Valley. The Californians would get conquered by the Spaniards, but it might take centuries to get them fully under control, and the Spaniards would use a lot of the pre-existing native institutions to govern them.

 

[Arkenfolm]

California might be interesting. If they get in contact with the Oasisamerica cultures, they could adopt corn cultivation from them, and with the inspiration, start domesticating some of their own crops. By contact, they would be a mosaic of city states dotting the Central Valley. The Californians would get conquered by the Spaniards, but it might take centuries to get them fully under control, and the Spaniards would use a lot of the pre-existing native institutions to govern them.

They were in contact with Oasisamerica, it's just the technology of irrigation canals never really transferred to California. This is pretty much necessary to grow maize in most of the state, alongside flood controls. Presumably, it was simply too much effort compared to the already productive gathering of acorns, hunting game, and fishing which allowed parts of the Central Valley to become the most densely populated area of the Americas north of Mesoamerica and the entire state to likely hold a population of around 750,000 people in the mid-2nd millennium.

 

[King Jasper]

They were in contact with Oasisamerica, it's just the technology of irrigation canals never really transferred to California. This is pretty much necessary to grow maize in most of the state, alongside flood controls. Presumably, it was simply too much effort compared to the already productive gathering of acorns, hunting game, and fishing which allowed parts of the Central Valley to become the most densely populated area of the Americas north of Mesoamerica and the entire state to likely hold a population of around 750,000 people in the mid-2nd millennium.

Yea, this was the problem. California was so rich they already had plenty of food so they saw no point in agriculture.

 

[Deleted member 166308]

They indeed did, and that is a correct history of the California Indians. But California was a place that fulfilled the Tlingit proverb of "You have to be an idiot to starve", so there was no need to develop any further (same thing in the Pacific Northwest). It's like the Australian Aboriginals--their way of life worked perfectly, but it could have been so much more if they had transitioned to a fully agricultural model. Were the acorn used by the California natives the path to it? I'm not convinced. Since maize can't be transmitted across the desert, the only solutions to getting agriculture are either indigenous or finding a marooned Japanese/Chinese fisherman to help you do so (which no doubt happened numerous times, since their ships were reported off the coast in colonial times and there's no reason things always weren't that way, even if it was a one way trip). Both are pretty far out hopes, but both are doable when you appeal to human ingenuity. And for indigenous plants, California does have quite a bit, many of which were harvested in their wild form (as wapato was by Californian Indians).

They were in contact with Oasisamerica, it's just the technology of irrigation canals never really transferred to California. This is pretty much necessary to grow maize in most of the state, alongside flood controls. Presumably, it was simply too much effort compared to the already productive gathering of acorns, hunting game, and fishing which allowed parts of the Central Valley to become the most densely populated area of the Americas north of Mesoamerica and the entire state to likely hold a population of around 750,000 people in the mid-2nd millennium.

I see. A way to fix this issue could be getting a wave of migration from the east to spread agriculture. But a problem with the idea I just proposed would be that there are no plausible candidates for the source of such a migration. The Oasisamericans have too low of an population density to support a migration, and all the other agricultural groups are too far away.

 

[gentboss]

Mix it up a little. Delay contact until European society has advanced past its age of savagery and conquest.

 

[King Jasper]

To fulfill OP's WI we need to get as much of the Americas farming, ASAP. That leads to much higher Native populations. Without European intervention this is difficult, to say the least. The Native Americans were already using all the crops possible (corn, potato, squash) and possible domesticates (basically just llamas lol). This might be ASB. If you can push the POD back a bunch and give the Native Americans more domesticates and crops that would help a ton.

 

[Deleted member 166308]

Mix it up a little. Delay contact until European society has advanced past its age of savagery and conquest.

But if they never discovered the Americas, they never would have "advanced past their age of savagery", since the colonization of the New World was extremely influential in shaping modernity.

 

[Deleted member 166308]

To fulfill OP's WI we need to get as much of the Americas farming, ASAP. That leads to much higher Native populations. Without European intervention this is difficult, to say the least. The Native Americans were already using all the crops possible (corn, potato, squash) and possible domesticates (basically just llamas lol). This might be ASB. If you can push the POD back a bunch and give the Native Americans more domesticates and crops that would help a ton.

The problem is that not all of the native groups had all the crops. There were a few crops grown in the Caribbean that were not grown in Mesoamerica, and there were a few crops grown in Mesoamerica that were not grown in the Southeastern United States. Additionally. llamas were prevalent in highland Peru and Bolivia, but they were not as prevalent in coastal Ecuador, and totally absent from North America, even though there were a few places that they might have been helpful there.

 

[King Jasper]

The problem is that not all of the native groups had all the crops. There were a few crops grown in the Caribbean that were not grown in Mesoamerica, and there were a few crops grown in Mesoamerica that were not grown in the Southeastern United States..

Hmm. The problem is naval technology was shit. Because they didn't have nails to make boats made out of multiple pieces of wood. Because no metal. Maybe improve metallurgy, and get better boats from there? And then all those crops would circulate better.

 

[Deleted member 166308]

Hmm. The problem is naval technology was shit. Because they didn't have nails to make boats made out of multiple pieces of wood. Because no metal. Maybe improve metallurgy, and get better boats from there? And then all those crops would circulate better.

The sail and the outrigger would be good innovations that don't require metal. Iron metallurgy is unlikely considering the late POD.

 

[CalBear]

With a POD after 500 AD in the Americas, have indigenous Americans be the largest demographic group in the Americas, ahead of Europeans, Mestizos, Blacks, Mulattos, and Asians. In order to be considered as American Indian, they have to practice their indigenous cultures and speak the languages native to the Americas.

Mulatto?